To shape one's own reading practice: Lectoral agency in printed Devotio Moderna psalters (1480-1500)

Abstract

The psalms were deeply ingrained in late-medieval religious culture and practice. This article investigates how readers of Middle Dutch psalters handled these books and how they included the psalms in their religious practices. It focusses on the material evidence in about fifty copies of the incunable editions of the popular Devotio Moderna psalm translation. Ownership inscriptions, annotations, and instances in which the psalter was bound together with other texts in manuscript and print, reveal the active involvement of owners and users in shaping these books. Moreover, by adapting their books, the predominantly female reading public of these psalters also proves to have shaped their own religious reading practices.